Mindfulness Beyond Meditation

When you hear someone talking about mindfulness, do you think about meditation? Do you envision someone sitting in a quiet room somewhere simply taking deep breaths with their eyes closed? You probably think they are there trying to clear their minds of useless clutter and things that distract them from their paths in life. Well, you might be partly right. We can talk more about the goals of meditation and proper technique some other time. But for now, just know that it is an invaluable tool to master and just as significant if you can just get the basics down. As you can probably tell, however, Kind Rebirths focuses heavily on living mindfully aware. Meditation exists as one of the key components to mindfulness, but actual mindfulness exists outside of the environments that are noise and distraction free sometimes.

If you are like me, my days can change as easily as the wind does. I get emails that irritate me; I hear people’s comments that are easily perceived as disrespectful or impolite; and often things arise out of nowhere that disrupts my best laid plans for the day. In those moments, before we even get one second to interpret what’s going on, tempers flare super easily, right? And when we should be closing our eyes, controlling our breathing, and removing ourselves from the situation, many times we are stuck there. It’s not convenient to just switch things in the moment. In those times that we aren’t able to pivot, sometimes we just need to find a way to recognize what we are feeling and why before we allow it to decide what we do next. We need something more practical in that moment.

One day, I was in a meeting, and I was trying to offer some new ideas. I can’t remember what it was specifically, but I am sure it had something to do with me wanting to make some process more efficient. And then one of my colleagues started to challenge me. It was like it came out of nowhere. I sat there for a moment trying to process why she was saying what she said. I wasn’t sure if I should’ve felt embarrassment or frustration. I thought, should I defend myself? Should I strike back? Well, mindfulness doesn’t require you to squash or stifle our feelings or to even act like what people say doesn’t bother me. What it does do, however, is create the opportunity to recognize what that type of reaction would lead to. Further, and I probably should have led with this one, it asks you to consider what you are responding to. Is it the feedback itself, or is it how the feedback was delivered?

For me personally, I love that mindfulness is a practice that can be applied to anything we face in our lives. Whether it’s romantic relationships, financial decisions, how we handle situations on our jobs, or just how we conduct ourselves in general in public spaces. But please note, mindfulness doesn’t guarantee that we will always make the best decision or that we will respond with pure wisdom. I mean, we are still human and we make emotional and rash decisions. That doesn’t change immediately or for every encounter. But with mindful awareness, we have a better opportunity to understand holistically what’s going on. And just as important, we are better positioned to witness our behaviors rather than simply to repeat it without conscious thought.

In the Kind Rebirths world, I believe that all the meaningful and significant moments of clarity we all have personally are not just saved for the most fantastic moments of peace. We find them during situations that we find uncomfortable or challenging or disappointing. Meditation is key in helping us to develop practical awareness while mindfulness lets us bring that awareness into everything we do. Interchangeable? Not necessarily. Important? Absolutely. It’s good that we have the freedom and the ability to practice both individually, but it’s important to notice that they thoroughly complement each other.

Stay mindful…

Rebirth